Totally CrepeTacular, Not CrapTacular!

So the actual trailer was a little questionsable at first. I didn't go to pick up lunch, but I had my crack team of investigators sending me photos. I'm told it was actually really cute with the picnic tables and such.

I got the Roasted Chicken with Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions and Gruyere. And I am here to tell you... It was awesome. Totally worth $6.50. The side salad that I got with it was eh.. A little bit of lettuce and 3 slices of tomato- but the Balsamic Vinaigrette? To Die For. One of my cohorts had the Cuban Crepe that actually beat Mr. Flay and she said it was wonderful. I wouldn't know- we were all savoring our lunches and totally forgot to share. She said it was very spicy with the Tabasco, but I happen to LOVE the spicy, so I'm sure the Cuban and I have a date in a week or so.

We tried the Brownie Crepe which, in my opinion, was nothing exciting. It was a good brownie and all, but the crepe proved to be a wet wrapper for it. Not recommended for brownie or Crepe lovers. We also tried the Cinnamon Sugar Crepe. Very tasty. It was filled with cream cheese and toasted coconut and topped with almonds. I do have to say though, because they don't fill it, there was a lot of superfluous crepe...

As far as little Austin dives, it gets an A+. To quote a coworker, "I'm so glad these weren't craptacular after all that!"

CrepeTastic Wednesday!

So I come in to work Monday morning and one of my coworkers is frantically searching the internet for something... I asked if I could help and she tells me that we MUST find the crepe place that beat Bobby Flay in an episode of Throwdown here in Austin. All we know is they don't have a restaurant and they make and sell these savory and sweet concoctions from a silver trailer somewhere.

Now she has my attention. You say "Bobby Flay" and you always have my undivided attention. So she searches Food Network, finds the Throwdown website and starts searching episodes. I am googling "crepe...throwdown...austin". My office is a grueling research facility. We must find where these crepes are!

Victory! The name of the place is Flip Happy Crepes. They are THREE miles away! We promptly printed out their menu and salivate over the Cuban Crepes with pulled pork, the Roasted Chicken with Mushroom with Gruyere and caramelized onions, the Spinach, Feta and Roasted garlic Crepe. And that's not even Dessert Crepes! They have a Brownie Crepe with dark chocolate sauce and Chantilly cream, a Cinnamon Sugar Crepe with toasted coconut and cream cheese and Fruit Crepes!!!

People are poking their heads into the office and asking us what's going on, so we have to tell each of them the story... "Bobby Flay...Throwdown...Austin...Crepes...LUNCH!" So the whole office is excited.

And then we see....

They are only open Wed.-Fri. So our Crepetastic Lunch will have to wait TWO WHOLE DAYS!

So all day yesterday and today we all all crepe obsessed. We cannot wait. We have spent time looking over the menu and deciding who will get what and give a bite to who. We have built these crepes up and put them on a pedestal. For gawd's sake- they beat BOBBY FLAY!!! You don't just beat Bobby Flay with some regular, everyday crepe!

So the countdown is on! 24 hours until CrepeTastic Wednesday! I'll let you know how they are!

Tagged

Here’s how it works: Link to the person that tagged you:

Christel, and she'd have to link herself because I'm a technical r-tard.

Post the rules for the meme on your blog. And here they are:Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, tag 7 (or so) random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Since I have done this one once or twice, I tried to think of a few things you all don't already know... And it proved a good excuse to blog as I suffer from a blockage of material viewable by the public lately...

1.) I memorize what all 4 of my kids are wearing in the morning before they leave for school or daycare so that if anything ever happens and the police need to know, I will be able to describe in detail what I last saw them in. Morbid, perhaps... But I saw the movie Adam at a young age and it scared the shit out of me.

2.) I have an unhealthy attachment to Rod Stewart. My father listened to him a lot when I was a small kid and looks a little like him as well, so I decided they must be brothers. At 5, he became my Uncle Rod. When I went several years with no contact with my dad, he became my connection to my dad. I still cry when I hear Forever Young. Can't help it. Yes, I am gay. Suck it.


3.) I cannot eat Ramen Noodles. If I were starving to death and on my deathbed, I would still not eat Ramen Noodles. To me, it is like eating turds. Had them every damn day for almost a year when my family was buh-roke ass. Lived in a trailer with no electricity cooking Ramen-effing-Noodles over a can of sterno. Now the smell of them makes me want to vomit.


4.) I like my wrists and ankles. (Okay, other than the weak, bust my ass every five minutes part of my ankles) They are the only cute, tiny body parts I have (that you can see publicly-HA!)


5.) I am addicted to very few things in life, but there are a few that given one hit of, I am possessed till there's no more. These include anything that starts with D and ends in "oritoes", Sam's Choice Cajun Snack Mix (that whole 26 serving per bag thing is a bunch of crap- thats only if you are serving anorexic elves!) and chips and salsa. (Duly noted that yes, I may have a sodium issue)

6.) I watch reeeally bad TV shows while I'm on the treadmill. I figure if I'm going to watch trash, I better pay penance by running my ass off during it. Make Me a SuperModel, Intervention, Housewives of Orange County, The Girls Next Door- I am watching all this drivel and loving every painful mile of it lately!

7.) Old people scare me and I avoid them. Not like regular old people, but like OLD, OLD people. The kind you can't understand and cry and don't know who anyone is? That kind. I know. Straight to hell.

And because the name of the game is "Tagged", if you read this, consider yourself IT, Bitches!

Happy New Year

But there will not be much in the way of resolutions for this girl. This new year is so questionable that it scares me. But I'm excited too. Who knew on January 2nd of last year what 2007 would bring me? An amazing Spring Training visit to Ft. Myers that I will never forget, a crazy fun, pool-playing, drinking-Jager-till-I-passed-out-but-not-before-having-sex-in-the-front-seat-of-my-car birthday party, a visit from my sisters that went horribly wrong, my babies getting bigger and more beautiful, adventures with my friends, my career actually going somewhere, A WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONSHIP for my Sox??? Who knew?!

So I am excited to see what kind of trouble this year can bring me. A vacation to CINCY to see my boys, perhaps a move, perhaps not. Maybe a divorce? Maybe hope of staying together in something not resembling misery??? The possibilities are endless. Bring 2008 on!

Turkey Day

The first tradition we have for Thanksgiving in our household is the annual "Turkey Dive" wherein we all go shopping for our turkey and all but climb into the turkey bins in search of the biggest bird we can find at that particular location. Anything less than 20 pounds is automatically tossed back. It's just bragging rights on the line if you are the one who finds the biggest bird, but the way my kids and I go at, you'd think there was money involved...

So this years Tom Turkey weighed in at 22.3 pounds- and I was the winner! Not that we needed a bird that big- we weren't having any company other than my friend ChaCha, but I wouldn't know how to cook anything smaller. I was again reminded of this fact as I finished making a vat of mashed potatoes that could feed an army and a boy band.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I do this every year. Since I have been making Thanksgiving since I was 17, it's the only way I know how. Even when I had one child. I cook the same dishes with only a few changes (fresh green beans instead of moms canned ones, homemade cranberry relish instead of canned cranberry ala sauce, for example) and remember the stories behind who liked which best growing up. I still make gross yams because they were my sisters favorite, I have to have Lipton Onion soup mix French Onion Dip with Ruffles because it's what my mom let us snack on until it was time for dinner.

In short, I'm cooking for ghosts. I am cooking for the siblings who haven't shared this holiday with me in over 10 years, for my mom who is gone, for all the family I wish I had to share this day with and don't. It's my way. It's what I do. I won't cry about it, but I will cook the hell out of that 30 pound turkey I hope to find someday.

If you ever need a place to go for Turkey Day, please stop by. I always have more than enough- and you know I'm going to be sick of turkey reeeeal soon.

Dear Fat Cat, Sell-Out NASCAR Execs....

Dear NASCAR,

First of all, it is bulls%#* that I even have to write this letter. The fact that this bitch wasn't officially locked up weeks ago is ridiculous. How do you decide to just up and change the points system on a sport after 50 some odd YEARS? All the stats for the veterans, the founders of that sport, are under one system. How can you change the record books like this because people say they're bored? WTF? If an NFL team went undefeated and kicked every one's asses through a whole season AND the Super Bowl do you think they'd change the system?!?! GAH!

Under the true NASCAR points system, Jeff Gordon would not only have already hoisted his 5th cup, but locked this 6th one up 2 weeks ago!!! And as a Jeff Gordon endorser (and by that I mean #1 fan) I call BULLSHIT on NASCAR for this rewriting of records. For selling out to the friggin phone companies that are changing the name of the GD cup every year, (Yes, bitches, we went from Winston Cup to NEXTEL Cup to Sprint Cup next year) for not cherishing the history of this sport, for growing it into something it was never meant to be. You have turned your back on the fans, you have eliminated the heart and soul and you have negated the traditions that have made you the rich fat cat assholes you are.

It's been coming awhile- and taking Jeff's chance of tying Earnhardt's 7 Championships away was the last straw. If you're going to make the past and all it's stats null and void, why don't you go back and refigure all those years under your new rules to put us all on an even playing field? How many championships does Dale have then? Does Kulwicki never get that storied championship at all? Does Mark Martin have 4 or 5 trophies coming his way?

It is not our fault that Matt Kenseth bored the hell out of everyone and they tuned out for awhile. You know what, you should have told them to suck it. This is how it's always been. There are years guys are going to run away with it and years guys are going to have to go head to head, rubbin'-is-racing, fender knocking, slingshot maneuvering down to the last lap of the last race. but you didn't. You gave us all the finger, took away Rockingham and told us to deal with it while you ran off to catch a ride in your solid gold plane with diamond encrusted seats that would take you to your billion dollar houses where you dove into your pool of money...

I can only pray that Johnson chokes on Sunday and the rightful owner of this years Championship is crowned- despite you, not because of you.

Mobsters

So in the news today, I read that Salvatore Lo Piccolo, a Casa Nostra mob boss, was arrested outside of Palermo (Palermo!!!). During a raid of his home police uncovered a coded paper revealing the "Godfather's Ten Commandments"...

"Magistrates believe the elder Lo Piccolo, whose Mafia nickname is "the Baron," took over the reins of the crime organization after the arrest last year of former "boss of bosses" Bernardo Provenzano.
Interior Minister Giuliano Amato said the latest arrests, following that of Provenzano, showed the Italian state was able repeatedly to dismantle the leadership of the Sicilian Mafia."

Do paragraphs get any hotter than that??!

First of all, anything Italian (with the exception of my mothers disgusting, gross, asshole last husband) is sexy. Second, I know it's wrong, and no, I don't agree with all the murdering and whatnot, but seriously? Mobsters are sexy. I am fascinated by the whole thing. The American Mob scene in the 20s & 30s, Al Capone, the Valentine's Day Massacre, John Gotti, Tommy guns and speakeasies. I LOVE it. I have always been jealous that my friend, Kristin, who is Italian and has a very Italian last name, can say cool stuff like "You just don't fuck with someone who's last name ends in a vowel!"

I've never seen one episode of The Sopranos because I don't want big 'ol sweaty James Gandolfini ruining my perception of sexy, dark haired powerful Italian men in the mafia. Because I like to think that given the opportunity, I would totally be a mafia wife. Or mistress... But I digress.

The "Commandments" include barring mobsters from hanging out in bars, from befriending police and being late for appointments. It also bars them from "taking possession of money that belong to others or other families."

How to treat women also features in the Decalogue.

"You shall not look at wives of our friends," says one entry. "You shall respect your wife," says another. However, the Mafia comes first, as the fifth "commandment" orders a mobster to "be available for Cosa Nostra at any moment, even if your wife is about to give birth."

The last part of the list sets out application rules, saying that those who have a very bad behavior and no moral values cannot join.

See? Yes, they may be embezzling, murderous killers, but dammit they have morals and are loyal! And better than that, it's a guy whose ass is on-fucking-time for his appointments to whack someone! THAT is what I'm talking about!